Despite being the shortest month the team managed to get some serious hobby done this month!
Soggy
For this month I set myself one goal: paint up the Psi Titan I picked up a year ago when they came back in stock at Forge World. So naturally, the first thing I did was impulse buy a second hand Storm Eagle instead.
I hadn’t even been looking to get one, but the price was good and I fancied having a flier – despite being utter dogshit in this edition of Horus Heresy. The paint on it was rather chalky so stripping it seemed like a good idea at first.
This turned out to be ill advised. I had been warned that Biostrip 20 should be used sparingly on resin surfaces, but I did not expect it to go through the primer and remove the top layer of resin – which combined and turned into a sticky black goo all over the model.
After much swearing and some bleak moments I managed to get most of it off and decided just to bite the bullet. I’m happy how it looks from afar, but when you get close you can spot the imperfections and thin parts of resin were damaged.
So, if you are thinking about stripping resin consider going with the lazy option and respray it to save yourself some stress.
After this diversion, It was time to actually get the Psi Titan done. It turns out that you shouldn’t half assemble models and then leave them a year as you will inevitably lose bits (in this case five).
I’m happy with how it came out. I was hoping to do something a bit more with the glowing runes and look at doing some more weathering like verdigris, but at this point my mind had moved on.
The motivation for the Psi Titan was an upcoming Adeptus Titanicus campaign. The event in question has a phase inbetween missions which uses small markers to represent your forces, so I opted to make a mini Legio Ignatum Strategium. I think it’s adorable
At this point, Horus Heresy Jetbikes had been announced and I had cleared my hobby desk to get these painted. Except they never arrived (and still haven’t as of time of writing). So instead I started work on backburner project – my Warhammer Fantasy Empire army I picked up when I went home for Christmas.
I painted up Mydas the Mean, who will act as my general and a ten man squad of Greatswords. I’ve owned these for well over a decade so they were well overdue for some paint.
Given the number of models this army is going to be all inks and contrasts, lower effort but should look decent from a distance when all lined up in ranks.
With any luck this time next month I should have a load of jetbikes for my White Scars done. š¤
SRM
I am halfheartedly prepping for Adepticon, in which I will be playing Battletech, Kill Team, Age of Sigmar, and Necromunda. This has meant I need to learn how to play Battletech and get up to date on the other 3 games, so naturally I have spent most of the month playing and painting 40k, the one game I’m not playing at Adepticon. I never claimed to be particularly smart.
I painted both of these units in January, but their reviews didn’t come out til February, so I’ll just leave those two reviews for the Ogroids and the Chosen here.
After two units of fairly intensive models (my god the trim) I went back to some easier models with some Battletech models. The Archer has been a recent favorite, my first heavy mech in the Battletech video game, and the Stinger has always been a favorite since I accidentally picked up an Unseen Stinger as a wee one. The Urbie is an adorable trashcan that my buddy Dylan got me for Christmas. I also finally found a technique I like for getting dust on the feet without messing around with weathering powder, so I did that here.
I’ve been painting mechs for a “red team” and “blue team” for my regular opponent and I, and I included one of his favorites here, the Marauder. I meant to switch around the Valkyrie and Stinger between the teams here, but I primed them in the wrong batches and the rest is history.
I got to be part of the team who reviewed Strike Force Agastus, and I called dibs on some of the infantry from that box. I wanted to make a suitable Black Templars Castellan from the Lieutenant, so dug into my bits box and made him look properly zealous. I batch painted this Lieutenant and some Desolation Squad bois together, but only had time to finish the Lieutenant for the Warcom article. It was my first time being credited on Warhammer Community, and it was immensely gratifying to see my Lieutenant alongside so many other excellent painters, from Goonhammer to the broader community.
Lastly were the Desolation squad, who’ve been the subject of a lot of debate in the saltier parts of the community. The number of backhanded compliments I’ve gotten on these models has given me life, from “beautiful paintjobs wasted on bad models” to the completely deserved comparisons to Hot Wheels packaging and Guy Fieri’s wardrobe. I warmed up to the models themselves more and more during my time with them, and I’m excited to throw them down on the table. The moment I saw GW reveal them, I thought they had real GI Joe Playset Energy, and that the huge flat panels of their guns had great decal and freehand potential. I obviously wilded out just a little bit on them, but I think it was needed to make them fit in with the Black Templars aesthetic.
For next month, it’s looking like Imperial Guard are back on the menu, and I should be bulking out my Chosen into a full brick of 10 dudes. With those vague and specific plans in place, we’re marching into March, and Adepticon with it!
Charlie B
This last month has mostly consisted of inching towards finishing 5 Phobos lads, but they aren’t ready yet, so February’s output is limited to a couple of characters. First is a Big Mek for my Goff metalheads, a sturdy fellow named Krom Bignooz, pictured here with his assistant Squigglesworth (because he’s worth as much as the oil squig he’s carrying):
If you enjoy reading short and stupid stories about orks, you can read about his origins here.
Now, on to my next mostly-black-and-white character: a counts-as Judiciar I kitbashed from the events-only Primaris Champion and a Reiver head, plus some greenstuff to Romanize the sword hilt.
GW may only have had two short paragraphs in the Codex to talk about Judiciars, but those two paragraphs didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, so I had a think about how the concept of a Judiciar might be applied in a way that works (for me, at least). As with Mr Bignooz above, I wrote about that over at the Beard Bunker as it’s not a big enough subject for a Goonhammer post.
Keewa
This month I’ve mostly been laid up after receiving a Lumbar Puncture, but I have started and finished a few projects that have been on my docket for a while, the first being the Leagues of Votann Einhyr Champion (although I haven’t based him yet, I’ll base all of my Votann at the same time).Ā 
The other project for February: painting up a pair of Necromunda Slave Ogryns for a model review article to come out later in the spring. I had a lot of fun painting up and converting these big boys to be nice and characterful. I’m pretty proud of them, they came out a treat.
Rockfish
So I really only worked on one thing this month.
Admittedly a somewhat large thing.
If you saw our review recently you will know that I managed to get pretty much the entire box ready for the review, I might have finished it had a minor medical incident not derailed my plans. I ultimately managed to get the whole thing wrapped up before we hit the end of the month though!
You can check out the review for a few more shots of everything else, but here are the key shots that even managed to make their way into a Warhammer Community article!
Plus I retook pictures of the Desolation Squad, just so they were a little less bunched up
Caelyn
After a really good January in which I painted almost an entire 800pt Star Wars Legion army, I completely stalled in February. I was too busy attending the Vapnartak wargaming fair in York and turning forty, okay! I’ve been pulled into Battletech for the first time since the 90s and picked up the Beginner Box, which has rapidly become a favourite at my house because my partner and I can easily play one map games on the coffee table. The two ‘mechs included in the box are the only painting I got done all month. I didn’t have any real plans for these, since I’m intending to collect an ilClan period Rasalhague Dominion force, so I figured I’d paint them as random mercs for fun.
First up is the Griffin, which was inspired by Nene’s hardsuit from the ’80s anime classic Bubblegum Crisis. It’s an interesting colour scheme that I’d wanted to paint on something for ages.
The Vindicator was just a case of slapping Contrast paint all over the thing, in this case Aeldari Emerald, and then figuring things out from there. Really pleased with how the purple panels came out on this one.
PierreTheMime
Hello dear reader, it has been a long while since my spacemen have appeared here. Let’s just say winter was long and leave it at that.
Recently I decided to freshen up my ancient 5th Edition Word Bearers. All of the new Chaos Space Marine models are fantastic-looking (though one might argue in a bad place) and I had the idea to create a list around a centerpiece model and let the rest work itself out. I had an unused Shadowspear set lying around from years back, so I started first by cracking into that to create my Legionnaire units:
Each of these units used a good number of older bitz: the books/scroll were from a Skaven Plaguepriest box and an old Chaos Terminator Lord/Sorcerer. I also swapped out some backpacks/heads, replaced some weapons/swords, and topped some off with Icons/spikes from the 4th Ed. set which still fit decently well and look like they fit into this ragtag bunch of real heroes. There’s also a Dark Vengeance boltgun model rounding out the second unit, as I didn’t have the proper arms to have that work from the Shadowspear set alone. The aesthetic hasn’t changed enough since 6th Ed. that he stands out much unless I mention he’s standing on his tippy-toes to match the height of the current models.
Next, I did up a Warpsmith, ready to assist the sons of Colchis with their mechanical needs:
What type of machine could this plucky mechanic possibly need to assist with? Well, it’s a bit temperamental and the other marines don’t enjoy checking its gauges, on account of a few being mauled/put into the blood tanks:
A Khorne Lord of Skulls is the backbone of this new army. Its assembly and painting were, how can I phrase this, NOT FUN. I am glad I did it but I am also very glad that it’s finished and I don’t have to assemble/paint the same large components repeatedly.
Next, I’m starting in on 10 Possessed and 5 Chaos Terminators, a large part of the Balefleet Battleforce box. I don’t have them all done yet, but I did do up a test Possessed. This one was converted a bit, losing its spider arms (that look is a bit too noticeable to be repeated twice in a set of 10) for some tendrils and a Greater Possessed powerfist/claw instead:
That’s it for this month! Hopefully I’ll return soon to post more f(r)iends.
Bair
Little bit of a slower month for me overall actually, I got to work through reviewing the new Kharadron Overlord battletome which inspired me to finally paint up more Arkanauts and my second Frigate, still need to build and paint 6 more Skywardens and some more Thunderers but that’ll be next month’s job!
I also got the gyrocopter above painted up, but on a square base to join my Old World dwarf army I’ve been working on for 6th edition. Got to play 2 games back to back at the HATE club in Hackney this month too, was a great time playing against Lizardmen and Tomb Kings with some absolute crazy artillery shots made in both.
Next up I strong armed a regular at my local games club to trying Mantic’s Kings of War Armada which spurred me into painting my Empire of Dust fleet as well as some resin cast islands and rocks that I’d gotten a few months back for a more immersive 3D game.
I really have been playing just too many games…I also finally painted up my Mountain Jotnar for my Conquest Nord army. Also some Tie Fighters for Star Wars Armada which I’ve just started picking up, and Gotrek for Age of Sigmar that’s been sitting around on a shelf for far too long in grey plastic.
